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People gathered along the street watch as Jews are rounded up and marched through Lvov.

Lvov

The city of Lvov (L'viv) in southeastern Poland was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1939, under the terms of the German-Soviet Pact. There were over 200,000 Jews in Lvov in September 1939; nearly 100,000 were Jewish refugees from German-occupied Poland. The Germans subsequently occupied Lvov after the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.

Eastern Europe after the German-Soviet Pact, 1939-1940
Eastern Europe after the German-Soviet Pact, 1939-1940
  • US Holocaust Memorial Museum

Encouraged by German forces to begin violent actions against the Jewish population in Lvov, Ukrainian nationalists massacred about 4,000 Jews in early July 1941. Another pogrom, known as the Petliura Days, was organized in late July. This pogrom was named for Simon Petliura, who had organized anti-Jewish pogroms in the Ukraine after World War I. For three days, Ukrainian militants went on a rampage through the Jewish districts of Lvov. They took groups of Jews to the Jewish cemetery and to Lunecki prison and shot them. More than 2,000 Jews were murdered and thousands more were injured.

Lvov environs
Lvov environs
  • US Holocaust Memorial Museum

In early November 1941, the Germans established a ghetto in the north of Lvov. German police shot thousands of elderly and sick Jews as they crossed the bridge on Peltewna Street on their way to the ghetto. In March 1942, the Germans began deporting Jews from the ghetto to the Belzec killing center.

Wilek (William) Loew describes the roundup of Jews during August 1942 deportation from Lvov to Belzec

Wilek was the son of Jewish parents living in the southeastern Polish town of Lvov. His family owned and operated a winery that had been in family hands since 1870. Wilek's father died of a heart attack in 1929. Wilek entered secondary school in 1939. Soon after he began school, World War II began with the German invasion of Poland. Lvov was in the part of eastern Poland annexed by the Soviet Union. Although the Soviets took over Wilek's home and the family business, Wilek was able to continue his schooling. On June 22, 1941, German forces invaded the Soviet Union. The Germans occupied Lvov and established a ghetto there. Wilek was among a small group of Jews who left the ghetto daily to work, making roofing paper for the German army. In 1943, shortly before the Germans destroyed the Lvov ghetto, Wilek obtained false papers, assumed the name of a Christian coworker, and fled to Hungary. He became a courier for the resistance in Budapest and was eventually arrested by the Germans as a Polish spy. He was sent to the Auschwitz camp in October 1944. Wilek was among thousands of prisoners sent on a death march to the German interior as Allied forces advanced. He was liberated by US forces in April 1945, and immigrated to the United States in 1949.

 

  • US Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection

By August 1942, more than 65,000 Jews had been deported from the Lvov ghetto and murdered. Thousands of Jews were sent for forced labor to the nearby Janowska camp. In early June 1943, the Germans destroyed the ghetto, killing thousands of Jews in the process. The remaining ghetto residents were sent to the Janowska forced-labor camp or deported to Belzec.

Shoes of victims in the Janowska camp were found by Soviet forces after the liberation of Lvov.
Shoes of victims in the Janowska camp

Shoes of victims in the Janowska camp were found by Soviet forces after the liberation of Lvov. Janowska, Poland, August 1944.

  • National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD

Author(s): United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC

Critical Thinking Questions

  • Learn about the lives of the Jews in the community of Lvov before 1939.

  • What pressures and motivations may have affected the choices and actions of the local population?

  • Why did the Nazis implement a system of ghettos?

  • How does the example of this ghetto demonstrate the complexity and the systematic nature of the German efforts to abuse and kill the Jews?

  • How can societies, communities, and individuals reinforce and strengthen the willingness to stand up for others?

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